


Reindeer Games (The Avengers go to the Zoo side-shot)

by hquinzelle



Series: Darcy Lewis, Avengers PR Rep [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Everyone hopes Darcy doesn't find out, F/M, Loki is bored, Loki makes a new friend, Loki plays along, Stark figures out how to distract Loki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-24
Updated: 2014-07-24
Packaged: 2018-02-10 04:43:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2011326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hquinzelle/pseuds/hquinzelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During Chapter 2 of The Avengers go to the Zoo, Darcy asked Tony to keep Loki busy while she took care of Thor's photo shoot.  This story, which is a side-shot, explains what happened during that time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reindeer Games (The Avengers go to the Zoo side-shot)

A banner proclaiming “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes – Meet the Avengers!” hung above the Zoo Center entrance at the Bronx Zoo.

“Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, indeed,” Loki muttered underneath his breath as he entered the building.

An overeager volunteer tried to hand him a program, but changed her mind when he glowered at her.

He moved through the crowd until he reached the back of the room, as far as possible from the festivities. He then staked a spot for himself on a wall and took a moment to look at his surroundings.

Darcy, aided by Stark’s bottomless bank account, had truly outdone herself for this event. The majority of the Avengers PR events were adults-only, but this event, since it was taking place at the zoo, had been deemed “family-friendly for all ages”. Ample food and drink (an open bar was always a big hit) were available for the adults, while the children were able to get their face painted or get their picture taken with a cardboard standee of their favorite superhero.

The food, alcohol, face painting, and cardboard standups, however, were quickly forgotten when the superheroes were there in the flesh, shaking hands and signing autographs.

Captain America, Hawkeye, and the Black Widow were currently making the rounds. Rogers, who was disgustingly likeable as always, had a warm smile and kind word for everyone who approached him. Barton and Romanov were considerably less enthusiastic; Barton looked he just wanted to hide (preferably in a tall place), while Romanov…Romanov seemed to have two expressions, I want to kill you and I _really_ want to kill you. People would approach Barton, but they generally gave Romanov a wide berth.

Banner would have a photo shoot like everyone else, but he had opted out of attending the event at the Zoo Center…large crowds in small spaces weren’t exactly his thing.

Stark and Thor were missing, so they must be having their photo shoots now. Darcy had (wisely) not told Loki the time and location of everyone’s photo shoot, even his own – she said the photographer’s assistant would get him when it was time. He had managed to sneak a peek at her papers, though, and had seen something about Thor and lions.

He grinned as he stepped away from the wall. It was time to go see what his _dear brother_ was up to; causing trouble for Thor would definitely alleviate some of the boredom he was currently feeling. The trick was making sure that Darcy had no reason to suspect he was involved…speaking of which…

Loki was in the middle of casting a spell to create a duplicate of himself, giving the illusion that he had been at the Zoo Center the entire time, when he felt a tug on his suit jacket.

“Have you seen Iron Man?”

Loki looked down to see a small boy – probably around four or five years old, if he had to guess – wearing an Iron Man costume looking up at him, waiting for an answer to his question. A sarcastic retort was on the tip of his tongue – just because they were at the zoo, didn’t mean he was the man’s keeper – but he bit it back. He was the kinder, gentler Loki now (according to Darcy, at least), and that included not making children cry.

“No, I haven’t,” he said politely. He went back to casting the spell, thinking that would be the end of it – only to feel another tug on his jacket a few seconds later. He closed his eyes in frustration before he looked down at the little boy, who still hadn’t moved.

“Yes….?” he drawled.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m casting a spell to create a duplicate of myself,” Loki answered honestly, knowing that no one would ever believe the little boy if he repeated the tale.

“Why?”

“I want to go cause some trouble, and I don’t want to get caught,” he said.

“Why?”

“Don’t you have parents somewhere?” Loki responded, gritting his teeth.

The child let go of Loki’s suit jacket, wiping his nose with the back of his hand before grasping the jacket again.

Loki gave him a disgusted look.

“My name’s Ethan. What’s yours?”

“I am Loki, of – ” Loki began, but was blessedly interrupted as a young woman ran up and grabbed the little boy, scolding him.

“Ethan! Don’t you dare scare Mommy like that again!” she said. “What were you doing?”

“I was talking to that man,” Ethan answered, pointing at Loki.

“Who?” Ethan’s mother said. She knew someone had been standing there talking to her son when she had run up, but she didn’t recall what they looked like or who they were.

“Have you seen Iron Man?” Ethan asked.

* * *

Loki decided to skip the duplicate for now, heading straight for the Zoo Center entrance, instead. He had wasted enough time talking to the little boy, and he knew that Darcy had a very strict schedule for each photo shoot. If he didn’t get to the African Plains exhibit soon, he might miss his window of opportunity.

Of course, that meant that he would need to figure out a way to get Darcy to forgive him…he would worry about that later.

“Loki.”

“What now?” Loki snapped, turning to look at the person who had stopped him.

Natasha Romanov stood there, one eyebrow raised, presumably because of his tone.

“The photographer’s assistant was just here. He said that your photo shoot is going to start in a few minutes, and to meet him and Darcy there. He circled the location on the map,” she said, handing him one of the maps that were readily available inside the zoo.

Loki opened it, looked at the location, then looked at it again, just to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.

“Is this someone’s idea of a joke?” he said, looking up – but Natasha had already melted back into the crowd.

Stark chose that moment to rejoin the party, making himself the center of attention as usual. Loki narrowed his eyes at the man – Stark met his gaze and grinned widely before turning his back and preening for his admirers.

Loki looked at the map again. Someone wanted to play (he strongly suspected who that someone was); he would take the bait, if only because he was bored out of his mind. It should only take a few minutes to check this out, and then he could get back to his original plan of bothering Thor.

* * *

Five minutes later, Loki stood in front of the Reindeer exhibit, looking at a pile of children’s games, stacked up neatly and tied with a bow – Monopoly, Sorry!, Life, and Operation, among others.

A card was propped on the ground in front of the games; he bent down and picked it up. The card was for the Midgardian holiday of Christmas, featuring a reindeer with a large red nose surrounded by smaller reindeer.

“Reindeer Games,” a bold hand had inscribed in gold ink on the inside. There was no signature.

Loki smirked. There was only one person who could have set this up – the only person who ever dared to call him Reindeer Games – Tony Stark.

The real question was why Stark had done it – was he just taking advantage of an opportunity to prank Loki, or had Darcy assumed he would figure out where Thor’s photo shoot was, and asked Stark to create a distraction?

He filed the second thought away to analyze later; he had no reason to believe that Darcy knew he’d seen her papers and was aware of the location of Thor’s photo shoot, but she had surprised him before.

He headed back towards the Zoo Center, already plotting his revenge. Honestly, he wasn’t that upset – indeed, he admired the man's creativity - but he knew Stark was expecting him to react, and he didn’t want to disappoint.

* * *

 

It had been almost half an hour since Tony had bribed the photographer’s assistant to track down Natasha and give her the message and map for Loki, and Loki still hadn’t returned. He was probably lurking somewhere, figuring out the quickest way to murder Tony.

Tony had put a lot of thought into this prank, and he didn’t want it to go to waste. He had scared the crap out of an employee that was closing up a local toy store when he suddenly dropped out of the sky in his full Iron Man armor. The employee was angry at first, but his tune quickly changed when Tony handed him a big stack of hundred dollar bills for three games that were $10 each retail. Afterwards, he had to track down the photographer’s assistant, who had been taking advantage of the open bar (that Stark had paid for) to get trashed. It had taken him a few minutes – and another stack of hundred dollar bills – to convince the assistant to play along, and a few extra hundred dollar bills to convince the assistant he should approach Natasha and have her give Loki the message. Surprisingly, he hadn’t needed to convince Natasha at all, she had accepted the photographer’s story without question.

He put his finger under his tuxedo collar, trying to get some air. A bead of sweat dripped down his face, and he impatiently wiped it away.

“Is it hot in here, or is it just me?” he asked Donald Trump.

Donald had trapped him in a conversation – it seemed like it was hours ago now - about the energy source for Stark Tower; he wanted to get in on the ground floor, before Stark built any more reactors. Tony ordinarily would never have passed up a chance to talk about his favorite subject (himself); however, he was starting to get nervous.

Tony’s attention snapped back to Trump when the man turned white as a sheet…that could mean only one thing.

Loki was back, and he wasn’t happy. 

* * *

 

Loki made a beeline directly to Stark when he stalked back into the Zoo Center, people automatically getting out of his way when they saw the look on his face. Stark, who was in the middle of talking to Donald Trump, noticed something was wrong when Trump turned white as a sheet.

“Donnie?” he asked, before turning around to see what Trump was looking at.

“Stark,” Loki said, “I’ve been looking for you.”

He smiled disarmingly, and everyone turned back to what they were doing before, having obviously misunderstood what was going on – it was just a friendly conversation between two old friends.

Stark laughed nervously.

“Well, you found me,” he answered.

Loki leaned closer to him as he whispered, “You should have left your armor on.”

“We have a Hulk,” Stark said, trying to lighten the mood.

Loki just looked at him for a second, expressionless, before he finally said, “I left a present for you outside.”

He turned and walked away.

Tony stood there for a few minutes, debating on whether or not he should investigate, but he finally gave in, stepping outside.

Loki grinned as he watched Stark take the bait. Thor had just entered the room, and Rogers was now missing, so he knew he was too late to aggravate his brother – but all was not lost, he could still have fun with Stark.

* * *

 

Smoke, accompanied by green flames, was coming out of a trash can next to the Zoo Center.

Tony looked around, trying to figure out why no one was panicking, but apparently he was the only one who could see the fire. A few people were wrinkling their noses, indicating they could smell the smoke, but they walked by the trash can without stopping. One person even came up and threw a half-empty bottle of soda into the can before rejoining the party.

He cautiously looked inside the trash can, and barked with laughter before he thought about it. Inside the trash can, burning to a crisp was the pile of games that he had set out for Loki, along with the card.

As he watched, the games were devoured, and the fire died out. A card appeared in its place, and Tony – looking around to make sure no one saw a billionaire picking through a zoo trash can – apprehensively picked it up. The outside of the card featured a picture that appeared to be a row of windows seen from the perspective of the inside of a room; the view that could be seen out the windows looked suspiciously like the view from his rec room at Stark Tower.

Inside the card, in bold green script, was one word…. _Defenestration_.  There was no signature.

Tony looked at the card for a few seconds before he finally turned and walked off, leaving the card where he had found it.

He was going to put his armor on...just in case.

**Author's Note:**

> As far as I know, the Bronx Zoo does not have a Reindeer exhibit, but there are reindeer at other zoos, so I took artistic liberty. 
> 
> Defenestration, for anyone who doesn’t know, is the action of throwing someone or something out of a window. I have always found it weird that this happens so often someone created a word for it.
> 
> I don't think anyone will notice, but I changed the charity in Chapter 1 of The Avengers go to the Zoo from "victims of the Chitauri invasion" to "World Wildlife Fund".


End file.
